What really makes a music scene? You know–those certain reasons that make you put on a jacket and promptly head for the El or call a cab just to get there in time. That’s what Chicago Innovative Electronic Music (CIEM) and subVariant are asking via their Crowdsourced 1.0 event: What is it about electronic music that people want to see live?

It really is a heady question. But, CIEM & subVariant‘s preliminary answer seems to be: "That which is "crowdsourced."

To the unfamiliar, "crowdsourced" means that the content that is the most popular "rises to the top" via votes–as in, the crowd chooses what’s the most relevant. On Digg.com (a popular news and entertainment aggregator) the front page is filled with only the content that has been voted up through "diggs." Threadless is also a good example: only the designs that are voted hottest actually make it to production.

On April 10, CIEM will test their theory in the electronic music world. Electronic music fans and supporters were asked to vote on a number of the submissions from Chicago artists to determine the lineup for the night. After approximately 600 online-votes later, the results were in, and the top four will perform in order of the number of votes recieved.

It’s democracy in electronic music. Like, seriously, democracy. Not that "republic" stuff that’s been thrown around. These artists have been chosen by the people, for the people.